Episode Title: Wayne Dream Team
Original Airdate: 2-9-17
One thing I’ve already realized about why I decided to stop writing reviews on this site was that it was difficult for me to stick to a deadline each week when my evenings end up being so busy. So here I am, several days past my self-imposed deadline to discuss this past Thursday’s episode of Powerless. I will say that the episode did minimize the amount of Batman references, and I will also say that I re-watched the first episode with my wife and there were a couple non-Batman DC references that I overlooked. This episode also focused more on the entire office dynamic in general with very little in the way of actual superheroics which was mostly relegated to the office fantasy superhero draft.
What I have noticed more about this episode is that it follows a pattern that was revealed to me in several commentaries of Simpsons episodes. In many early Simpsons episodes, there would be about 22 minutes of conflict where everyone is miserable and 1 minute of a happy resolution at the end. In this show, there is about 19 minutes of conflict where the characters don’t like each other, and 1 minute where they do. For now, the comedy of conflict works, but moving forward there needs to be a bit more than just office tension to move these characters forward. Currently, my favorite character is the disenfranchised-but-still-helpful secretary Jackie. Even though it doesn’t entirely make sense for her to be as helpful as she is, she walks the line between being snarky for meanness sake and being snarky but in a helpful way. The main character Emily is a little too bubbly for my tastes, and the rest of the design team still mostly blends together without having separate personalities just yet. The R&D project that this episode somewhat focuses on is the rumbrella – an umbrella that protects citizens from falling rubble, but testing generally results in decapitation. And instead of working on fixing their project on a deadline, everyone’s so fixated on the superhero draft that they are procrastinating. The B-story is a little on the unbelievable side just due to how all encompassing the draft is, though I’ve never been in an office space during a fantasy football draft. The C-story with HR does add an extra antagonistic character, though I doubt that he’ll stick around for more than this one episode. All in all, it was a decent enough episode, it made me laugh a few times, but there’s still just something about the entire office dynamic that hasn’t gelled quite yet.
Channel: Superhero 